Boxed Philips Videopac Games There are three kinds of boxes for Videopac games, picture inlay cases, black inlay cases and the original cardboard box varieties.
Unboxed Philips Videopac Games Videopac Cartridges are the only games ever made which feature a proper handle to tug them out of the console with.
Philips Videopac Information
The Videopac was originally released in the USA in 1978 by Magnavox as the Odyssey 2, the sequel to the first games console of all time, the Odyssey. Following Philips takeover of Magnavox, and the companies willingness to get involved in the games industry, they launched the Videopac in Europe head to head against the superior Colecovision in 1982. There were sixty games in the official Philips series for the console, though this has grown to 65 thanks to the homebrew community.
While the console was rather under-powered for the time, there was a huge range of exciting peripherals. These included a chess module with its own plug in game board, musician - a piano module with clip on keyboard, and two inventive hybrid board games, which used the Videopac to direct play. In the US the Odyssey 2 got 'the Voice', a dedicated speech synthesizer, which when coupled with the cartridge 'Type and Tell', is still lots of fun to play with today.
While the regular G7000 is the console you are most likely to know, there are lots of hardware variations. Most notable is the G7200, which has a built in black and white or colour monitor.
In Europe the G7200 is white, but the Odyssey equivalent in the US in black. To confuse matters further, there is also a rarer compact version released as the Philips N60 in Europe (right).
The G7400 was an updated second release of the standard console, and included improved hardware. It would play regular G7000 games, but also G7000+ games which appear later in the series. While these games do run on regular G7000 machines, they include better hi-res graphics on the G7400. Some G7400 machines also include the 'Voice' peripheral built into the hardware.
If this is all too confusing, don't worry. All Videopac or Odyssey 2 games play on any Videopac or Odyssey 2 machines.
